becoming tourney legal on Friday and regionals around corner, it’s time to start looking at the “Test Gauntlet” of decks for play testing. This article contains a starting point of testing for your deck to see if it will stand up to the proposed metagame that I see forming. The list is not yet complete because all the cards are not yet legal and the metagame is not fully formed. The decks in this list are starting points for testing and may need to be refined. Hopefully this helps prepare your deck for the upcoming season.

The basic premise of the deck is to punish the opponent for using discard to their advantage. The Wrath and Edict holds off the opponent’s threats and the discard spells (first or second time thru) force your opponent into pain from the megrim. The lynx’s are for the fast green rush until you can reset the board.

. This deck is lightning fast and forces you to stabilize or become toast. Just like in the extended season, if you can stop trhe rush, the game is normally yours. Sligh is made to win quickly and does not consider mid to late game threats.

deck. This deck revolves around white life gain (Life burst etc) and removal (wrath etc) and then either playing a big threat (Fat Moti, enforcer etc). I have not tested this deck, but I feel it can be very strong. Most of the matches went to time limit due to these decks…

Deck five: (Control Black)

Again, I have read many articles around the net focusing on this deck. I see that most of the cards (edict etc) remain the same, but the deck still has many versions. As with Psychatog

, I will not be going into the differences as this article is focusing on the gauntlet as opposed to specific decks.

Deck six: (Rocket Shoes):

I believe that rootwalla will have an impact here. A fast green/red deck has to be handled. Unlike sligh, this deck packs threats for the mid to late game but can fall victim to the same fate as sligh if you can stabilize from it’s early assault. Make sure you can deal with the trampling beats this deck can supply.

Deck seven: (Grow)

Grow is still present in the current standard environment stemming from it success in the extended season. The debate of the dryad continues (with or without?). This deck is a “must-test” because of ability to serve for lethal damage in a quick amount of time. I believe that disruption decks will push this deck back some, but that could change and bring this deck back to the forefront of the metagame.

for COP black. It also gives you a way to deal with domain decks if they resurface in the new metagame.

Those are the beginning eight decks (or deck types) that I propose that you test against. As with any play testing, make sure you evaluate your opponent in the testing as well as the match up. For example, Psychatog